“When you measure the wrong thing, you get the wrong thing. Perhaps you can be precise in your measurement, but precision does not equal significance.”
– Seth Godin, in an April, 2016 post on his blog
Wells Fargo thought accounts-per-customer was the right thing to measure. Right up until it wasn’t. Borders and Blockbuster thought that number of books / videos sold was the right thing to measure. Remember Borders and Blockbuster? Yeah, me neither.
Seth Godin makes me better. He does the same thing for anyone that reads his stuff, meets him or even considers one of his positions. And this matter — measuring the right things, seeking significance over “success” — is where he most often catches my attention.
To drive the point home, there was a time in our history, Seth points out, that military leaders defined “success” based on body count. Sigh…
Now, look, I’m one of the biggest George Patton fans there is, and Patton famously said, “No (one) ever won a war by dying for his country; you win wars by making the other (guy) die for his country.” If that’s your only choice, I reckon it’s still true. But Patton also famously said, “A good plan, ruthlessly executed today is better than a perfect plan two weeks from now.”
How much time do we invest deciding what we’re gonna measure? How we define significance or success? How much time do we invest in the stuff that comes before the “end,” as opposed to striving, reaching and sweating over an end.
If all we’re going to measure is the final score, we might have a good season. We might win more games than last year. But if all we’re going to measure is the final score, we’re going to be Wells Fargo, Blockbuster and Borders when the game changes — and I don’t like the sound of any of that. If all we’re going to measure is the final score, it’s going to be a lot more difficult to make a difference.
PS With apologies, I woke up Friday realizing that I either needed to get back to this blog, or change the name to “The Sporadic Difference.” I decided to start writing again…. Thanks for your patience….
Mick Kirisits says
Welcome back! ?